Messages in this thread |  | | | Date | Mon, 22 Jun 1998 15:41:11 +0200 | | From | Erik Corry <> | | Subject | Re: Y2K |
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In article <Pine.LNX.3.95.980622082303.1910B-100000@chaos.analogic.com> you wrote: > On Sat, 20 Jun 1998, Rogier Wolff wrote: >> The gregorian calendar will be off-by-a-day after about 51395 years. >> This does not take any "slowing" effects into account.
> Isn't this the reason for the "leap-second" thrown in every so often > by the regulatory authorities (NIST in the USA)? I understand that > the number of days in a year has been adjusted by convention, to be > some number that is exactly represented. The result is adjusted to > be, on the average, correct by use of the leap-second.
There's a mistake in there somewhere. The leap second adjusts for variations in the length of a day (ie the time it takes for the earth to spin around its own axis). It cannot adjust for the length of a year (ie the time it takes (in days!) to orbit the sun once).
-- Erik Corry
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